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Comment by kybernetikos | Hacker News Reader

I pretty sure that they want to create something like a successful second life - i.e. a VR social network, where users have their own virtual property that they can customize and virtual spaces where they can meet. Basically something like the metaverse in Snowcrash.

And I can completely see the high ups in Occulus thinking that this is a brilliant match of visions.

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> Basically something like the metaverse in Snowcrash

More like the Oasis from Ready Player One, but owned by the Sixers from the start.

This is what I was thinking, too. Facebook buying Oculus is the exact sort of disaster that Parzival spent the entire book trying to prevent against.

In fairness to Mark Zuckerberg, RP1 was wildly idealistic in a way I can only describe as Stallmanesque. Beautiful, but wildly idealistic.

Okay, any reason that would succeed where VRML failed? I just don't see it.

Because there's a big difference between laughable polygon-hell at 0fps and simulated presence.

Anyway, their principle interest is probably AR anyway. Everyone else is tumbling into that space.

No wireless, less space than a Nomad. Lame.

This was the slashdot editor's byline when Apple released the iPod. Just because a technology exists at one point and failed, doesn't mean that sort of technology can never work. Apple released the Newton ages ago, and we didn't switch to touch screen mobile devices till the iPhone.

Speak for yourself. Many many people were using touch screens on Palm devices throughout the late 90s and early 2000s.

Yes, lots of people were. But it wasn't mainstream.

I'm pretty sure you weren't working in business in the United States in the late 90s. The Palm devices were the fancy gadgets to have.

The were vastly more mainstream than the Newton ever was. They lost traction when the Blackberry phone emerged in the early 2000s, but if they had been able to get in the phone game faster, Palm could have beaten Apple to the smartphone.

Tons of reasons.

1. Headset navigation. You move your head and your view changes.

2. Rendering speed.

3. Social network with real audio incorporated into the game? Say goodbye to the chat line.

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